Demanding More from the Childless

 

Should the childless pay higher taxes so that families with children can pay less? That is the question asked, and answered in the affirmative, by conservative columnist Reihan Salam in a recent column at Slate.

Salam, who is himself childless, comes to this conclusion after analyzing some of the realities that beset parents who are raising children in these difficult times. His major premise is that it is unjust to impose heavy tax burdens on couples raising children because it is they who are making the sacrifices necessary to produce the generations to come — and to raise them to not only be economically productive, but to pass on the social capital upon which the nation thrives.

The tax system already includes benefits to parents with children. But Salam contends that the burden should be shifted even more to nonparents:

Shifting the tax burden from parents to nonparents, we will help give America’s children a better start in life, and we will help correct a simple injustice. We all benefit from the work of parents. Each new generation reinvigorates our society in its youthful vim and vigor. As my childless friends and I grow crankier and more decrepit, a steady stream of barely post pubescent braniacs writes catchy tunes and invents breakthrough technologies that keep us entertained and make us more productive. The willingness of parents to bear and nurture children saves us from becoming an economically moribund nation of hateful curmudgeons. The least we can do is offer them a tax break.

Salam’s thesis is interesting because he identifies not only an economic concern, but a social one as well.

From a purely economic perspective, he seems to have a point. The population is aging rapidly and, the desires of conservatives and libertarians notwithstanding, it is unlikely that the government will be getting out of the business of Social Security and Medicare any time soon. With Obamacare and entitlement spending sending the nation into economic despair, upcoming generations will bear an ever more oppressive financial burden, and a corresponding loss of prosperity.

To avoid or lessen the coming crisis, the country needs children willing to accept the weight. Parents bear the task of raising their children to accept this responsibility. To do this, parents must make enormous sacrifices. They must set aside many personal ambitions to focus their energy and resources on their kids. Society depends on well reared, morally schooled, and hardworking children if it is to survive, much less prosper, economically and socially. The beneficiaries are not just parents, but the childless as well. It might even be argued that the childless enjoy far greater benefits. As they age, those without children will benefit from entitlements like Social Security and Medicare, without having made the sacrifices accompanying child rearing.

There are many problems with Salam’s argument, of course. From a libertarian perspective, it could be argued that parents make the choice to have children and endure all the attendant sacrifice. That is certainly true. But the childless have also made a choice — and part of that choice means shifting the burden onto those who “toil on behalf of America’s future workforce.” To put it simply, non-parents often enjoy far more lavish lifestyles that parents, yet will still enjoy the wealth generated by future generations that will pay the cost of non-parents’ Social Security and the like. Moreover, non-parents who are able to set aside handsome sums for retirement will depend on generations raised by others to keep the economy going, which will be essential to maintaining the security of non-parents’ investments.

Other problems include determining the cost/benefit ratio in setting the amount of these tax benefits. Salam suggests some very high amounts in tax breaks to parents. That means tax increases on non-parents will be enormous. At some point, the injustice (if Salam is right in calling the present case unjust) may be shifted to non-parents. In addition, their incentive to work may drop. Unlike parents, the childless have greater freedom to leave the workforce, because they alone bear the immediate risk of the exit from employment. A sharp rise in early retirement would reduce the size of the workforce, which would in turn increase the burden on the young and increase the risk of stagnation.

Still, it might be worth trying. The country is in a childrearing crisis. New technologies like smart phones and iPads have given children uncontrolled freedom from parental discipline. Sexy pictures passed around schools, online bullying, and access to some very bad stuff on the Internet, have enormously complicated parents’ lives. As economic stagnation worsens, many parents must spend more and more time at work. Children are less and less supervised. Increased take-home pay could give parents greater flexibility to be home when the kids are out of school. It might also lessen the trend of babysitting by technology. A parent with something left at the end of the day will not be so quickly tempted to let the TV or computer watch the kids.

Salam’s vision is egalitarian, which always leads to risky social policy. But it could be that putting more money in the hands of parents will not only balance out an economic injustice, but also rectify a social injustice that severely underestimates the benefits all people, parents and childless alike, enjoy from well-raised children.

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  1. Albert Arthur Coolidge
    Albert Arthur
    @AlbertArthur

    EThompson:

     Do not get me started on the Millennials.

     I’m 31. Haha! :-\

    • #31
  2. Palaeologus Inactive
    Palaeologus
    @Palaeologus

    Mike Rapkoch:

    To put it another way, childless couples will have to rely on the general goodwill of children they did not have to keep things going. Absent familial bonds, the only hope is that children have been instilled with a broad sense of responsibilty for others. That will come from parents. Parents who bear the burden of providing a moral education. How will the childless fare?

     

    Probably pretty well for 15-40 years.

    Horribly ever after.

    Still, I doubt that the solution is in the tax code.

    • #32
  3. user_23747 Member
    user_23747
    @

    I’m more conservative than libertarian, but this is the type of proposal that makes so-cons look like progressive statists. The problem is the size and scope of government.

    Big families and population growth are good things, but a society that builds up debt for the future cannot last.

    • #33
  4. Byron Horatio Inactive
    Byron Horatio
    @ByronHoratio

    Since I am married and childless, why should I pay MORE for services that I don’t use so that people who do use said services pay less?  This is no different than any other sort of statist tinkering of a boondoggle tax code.  Admittedly, I’m in the Heinlein camp of basically saying if you don’t contribute taxes or military service, you should not have full citizenship.  Oh yes, you can enjoy all the luxuries of modern life, but you get zero say in representation and taxation. No representation without taxation.

    • #34
  5. user_554634 Member
    user_554634
    @MikeRapkoch

    Byron Horatio:
    Since I am married and childless, why should I pay MORE for services that I don’t use so that people who do use said services pay less? This is no different than any other sort of statist tinkering of a boondoggle tax code. Admittedly, I’m in the Heinlein camp of basically saying if you don’t contribute taxes or military service, you should not have full citizenship. Oh yes, you can enjoy all the luxuries of modern life, but you get zero say in representation and taxation. No representation without taxation.

     So what’s the diffference between Heinlein and the argument that you must contribute to the rearing of future generations if you want to benefit from future generations? 

    Plus, while it may be true that you do not use some of the services used by parents, you will still receive the benefits of a well reared productive workforce. Should you get a free, or at least discounted ride?

    • #35
  6. user_554634 Member
    user_554634
    @MikeRapkoch

    Bryan G. Stephens:
    There is nothing more important in the long term than raising another generation of citizens. It is in the people’s best interest. I had a post along these lines in 1.0, but I cannot link to it yet.

     Sorry you lost the link. I think I read it, but memory, as usual, fails.

    • #36
  7. user_385039 Inactive
    user_385039
    @donaldtodd

    Bob Laing: #4 “Here’s a better idea.  Force those who irresponsibly bring children into this world to bear the full cost of that decision.”

    While I understand Bob’s frustration, I am also aware of the problems faced by children who are raised in a system which administrates but does not care for them.  The children may well lose anyway, bad parenting, missing parent, raised in the streets, but then kids in the system don’t do so well either.  Shuffled from one set of foster parents to another set of foster parents, living an impermanent life with limited emotional attachments or semi-detached disregard.

    If we punish the parent/s, how does that benefit the child?  I don’t know.

    • #37
  8. Midget Faded Rattlesnake Member
    Midget Faded Rattlesnake
    @Midge

    Nick Stuart: The current tax system is obscene. Nobody’s taxes should be raised for any reason. The system itself must be simplified before it collapses. Stop tinkering around with it to advance this or that social good by incentivizing or disincentivizing this or that behavior like we’re a bunch of rats in a Skinner box.

    Fricosis Guy: Great. Another conservative has a plan to have us turn on each other like dogs.

    Rats in a box, turning on each other like dogs. Till nobody’s on nobody’s side.

    You do realize, Mike R, that an unequal and burdensome tax system with carve-outs for favored groups is already eroding citizens’ social cohesion. People already resent those that they believe (rightly or wrongly) have favored tax status over them.

    When “everybody’s playing the game, but nobody’s rules are the same,” resentment and cynicism are the natural outcome. Not really the best sentiments to foster if you’re looking to  increase  people’s sense of community.

    Am I wrong in thinking you wish we had  more  sense of community in modern life, not less? Maybe I am, if you favor policies that erode solidarity like this.

    • #38
  9. Midget Faded Rattlesnake Member
    Midget Faded Rattlesnake
    @Midge

    Salam suggests some very high amounts in tax breaks to parents. That means tax increases on non-parents will be enormous.

    Also will point out that at least some of these non-parents are saving up for parenthood. But, you know, we  could  take most of their money so that they never get a chance to save for parenthood.

    • #39
  10. Songwriter Inactive
    Songwriter
    @user_19450

    Nick Stuart:
    I have 5 children, four of whom have served in the military, all of whom we homeschooled K-12 (saving the state somewhere in the vicinity of say $500,000 (I think more, but let’s leave it at that). We’ve paid our dues.
    People without children are already being forced to pay for public schools they get virtually nothing out of (it can’t be argued it is a necessary expenditure because of the low overall quality of the product).
    The current tax system is obscene. Nobody’s taxes should be raised for any reason. The system itself must be simplified before it collapses. Stop tinkering around with it to advance this or that social good by incentivizing or disincentivizing this or that behavior like we’re a bunch of rats in a Skinner box.

     I cannot like this comment enough. (Though 2.0 just let me like it twice, I think.) It’s not the children, or the lack thereof, that is the problem. It is the insane tax system. Let’s tear down the tax system first. Then we can worry about how many kids we are raising. 

    • #40
  11. Mike H Inactive
    Mike H
    @MikeH

    Midget Faded Rattlesnake:

    You do realize, Mike R, that an unequal and burdensome tax system with carve-outs for favored groups is already eroding citizens’ social cohesion. People already resent those that they believe (rightly or wrongly) have favored tax status over them.
    When “everybody’s playing the game, but nobody’s rules are the same,” resentment and cynicism are the natural outcome. Not really the best sentiments to foster if you’re looking to increase people’s sense of community.
    Am I wrong in thinking you wish we had more sense of community in modern life, not less? Maybe I am, if you favor policies that erode solidarity like this.

     Is it at all possible that the screwed up tax system actually serves to keep taxes lower than they otherwise would be if things were “fair.” It seems like social cohesion and the feeling that “we’re all in this together” would actually leads to higher taxes, as is evident in Nordic countries. It may be similar to how diversity increases resentment, which leads those who feel resentment to vote for lower taxes so “those people” don’t take unfair advantage of them.

    • #41
  12. user_697797 Member
    user_697797
    @

    Donald Todd:
    Bob Laing: #4 “Here’s a better idea. Force those who irresponsibly bring children into this world to bear the full cost of that decision.”
    While I understand Bob’s frustration, I am also aware of the problems faced by children who are raised in a system which administrates but does not care for them. The children may well lose anyway, bad parenting, missing parent, raised in the streets, but then kids in the system don’t do so well either. Shuffled from one set of foster parents to another set of foster parents, living an impermanent life with limited emotional attachments or semi-detached disregard.
    If we punish the parent/s, how does that benefit the child? I don’t know.

     My hypothesis is that once all financial incentive to breed for profit is removed, less children will be born into abject, fatherless poverty.  For a decade or two, this would be a rough transition and some children might suffer a little more, but in the long run it would be far better for the kids and our society. 

    • #42
  13. Fricosis Guy Listener
    Fricosis Guy
    @FricosisGuy

    Midget Faded Rattlesnake:

    Nick Stuart: The current tax system is obscene. Nobody’s taxes should be raised for any reason. The system itself must be simplified before it collapses. Stop tinkering around with it to advance this or that social good by incentivizing or disincentivizing this or that behavior like we’re a bunch of rats in a Skinner box.

    Fricosis Guy: Great. Another conservative has a plan to have us turn on each other like dogs.

    Rats in a box, turning on each other like dogs. Till nobody’s on nobody’s side.

    Conservative ends +Progressive means = Progressive ends

    • #43
  14. user_385039 Inactive
    user_385039
    @donaldtodd

    Bob Laing: #42 “My hypothesis is that once all financial incentive to breed for profit is removed, less children will be born into abject, fatherless poverty.  For a decade or two, this would be a rough transition and some children might suffer a little more, but in the long run it would be far better for the kids and our society. ”

    You are assuming that people make mindful decisions.  

    Given the change you recommend, the debris will still occur but will have to be handled by other means, such as charities and churches and philanthropic organizations.  Assuming that people who have displayed little consideration for rational thought thus far will migrate to rational thinking is a reach; and not being used to rational thinking, they won’t be teaching it to their children either.   

    People who want to be taken care of will look for other means to be taken care of. 

    The political party that wanted to create a porch which would vote for them has done so by creating a dependency which must vote for them to maintain the current level of support.  That porch is growing, not going away. 

    We can want, but ….

    • #44
  15. CuriousKevmo Inactive
    CuriousKevmo
    @CuriousKevmo

    Too many great posts arguing against this idea for me to quote…but no thank you, let’s not do this.

    I take issue with a couple of premises (or is it premii) in the article.  One, who says we have to get older and more curmudgeonly.  I started out a curmudgeon and have gotten less so as I’ve gotten older.  I think I’ve gotten younger as I’ve gotten older too….hell I’m off to teach my step-daughter how to ride a dirt bike this weekend.

    And having kids is awesome…the tax benefits (if any) don’t factor into it.  My step-kids, when they aren’t breaking my stuff —  bring me endless joy and I’ve grown more as a human being from their presence in my life than I would have were I childless.  

    Less tinkering with the tax code would be lovely.

    • #45
  16. Midget Faded Rattlesnake Member
    Midget Faded Rattlesnake
    @Midge

    Midget Faded Rattlesnake:

    Salam suggests some very high amounts in tax breaks to parents. That means tax increases on non-parents will be enormous.

    Also will point out that at least some of these non-parents are saving up for parenthood. But, you know, we could take most of their money so that they never get a chance to save for parenthood.

     Now that I think about it, here is the really “just” tax policy:

    Since everybody knows that the woman’s fertility is the limiting time-factor to how many children most couples can have, we don’t tax  everybody  who doesn’t have children at a higher rate, but instead tax  unmarried women  (whether or not they have children, since bastardy is bad) at a higher rate than everyone else. Then, once the women are married  and  have their first child, they get their tax break.

    Unmarried men shouldn’t have to pay extra taxes, under the presumption that they, like most men throughout history, naturally want to accumulate some wealth before they feel eligible for marriage and fatherhood, and we don’t want to delay that accumulation.

    I’ll also note that it wasn’t uncommon in biblical times for husbands to be an estimated 10-15 years older than their wives. Maybe that’s the natural order of things, and we should tax unmarried women so heavily that all the sudden those men in their forties and fifties no longer look so bad to your average 25-year-old woman ;-)

    • #46
  17. CuriousKevmo Inactive
    CuriousKevmo
    @CuriousKevmo

    Midget Faded Rattlesnake: and we should tax unmarried women so heavily that all the sudden those men in their forties and fifties no longer look so bad to your average 25-year-old woman ;-)

     Now THIS is pure genius.  :-)  

    (I’m 50, why do you ask?)

    • #47
  18. Mario the Gator Inactive
    Mario the Gator
    @Pelayo

    Everyone who hates this idea should look at what is happening to birth rates in Europe to see the results of a society where more and more people come to the conclusion that children are too expensive.  In many of those countries they are being forced to welcome immigrants who don’t share their culture and values and it is crippling those societies.  I don’t care if you are Conservative, Libertarian, or whatever.  No kids equals no future.  Easing the tax burden on people who work, pay taxes and are willing to raise children is a way to prevent the decline of our culture and our country.  All of the arguments about unfit parents and kids on welfare are a red-herring.  We are talking about tax breaks for parents who work.  People who abuse the welfare system don’t pay taxes any way.

    Instead of spending our tax dollars on saving various endangered species of birds, fish, etc…, we should use them to save Conservative Americans.  That is an endangered species worth saving.

    • #48
  19. Midget Faded Rattlesnake Member
    Midget Faded Rattlesnake
    @Midge

    Mike H:
    Is it at all possible that the screwed up tax system actually serves to keep taxes lower than they otherwise would be if things were “fair.” It seems like social cohesion and the feeling that “we’re all in this together” would actually leads to higher taxes, as is evident in Nordic countries. It may be similar to how diversity increases resentment, which leads those who feel resentment to vote for lower taxes so “those people” don’t take unfair advantage of them.

    There is some possibility. I would guess it’s small, though, and probably outweighed by several other things, like not caring about others’ high taxes if you can rent-seek tax breaks for yourself.

    As for solidarity, there is probably an optimum amount of social solidarity somewhere between Nordic “socialist paradise” and kleptocracy. If we’re more towards the kleptocracy side of things, maybe we could use some more solidarity.

    • #49
  20. Son of Spengler Member
    Son of Spengler
    @SonofSpengler

    Some weeks back, there was a thread asking what you’ve changed your mind on. This is my big issue.

    The tax code and entitlement system effectively socialize the benefits of child-rearing while privatizing the costs (subsidies in public education only partially offset them). Not only is an injustice against those raising the next generation of taxpayers, it also works against the interests of civil society by creating a tragedy of the commons, with disincentives to perpetuating our civilization. So I’ve come around to believing in the justice of subsidizing parenthood.

    The challenge, though, is that there is no good way to do it. Scaling back entitlement and welfare systems, and lowering tax rates commensurately, would reduce the injustice without introducing new complexity – but isn’t politically possible. (If even Romney & Ryan were unpalatable to the electorate, forget about major course correction.) Further tinkering with the tax code is liable to do more harm than good, for the reasons people have mentioned. And as Jonathan Last has shown in his readable and insightful book, financial incentives have a poor real-world record of increasing fertility.

    So I think there is cause for deep pessimism, both economically and socially.

    • #50
  21. user_961 Member
    user_961
    @DuaneOyen

    EThompson:

    Brian Watt: There are all sorts of things in life that are unfair…excuse me, “unjust”. Perhaps people without pets should pay more than people with pets because pets obviously are a net positive good for society and in the case of dogs help to provide security and in the case of cats and boa constrictors help keep the rodent population down (depending of course, on how lazy one’s cat or boa constrictor is) and for the stressed and anxious amongst us help to calm our nerves when we pet them.

    You said it all, Brian. Most excellent comment.
    P.S. Thanks to 2.0, I was actually able to like your comment twice.

     Sometimes you like a principle (flat tax), but must do things in a less purist way because of market realities.  Mike Lee is one of the 5 senators on our side to whom I would be least likely to entrust our foreign policy, but his ideas on this front need to be debated.  And my kids are long grown, no grandkids, and I saved for retirement.  But something needs to change regarding families and tax policy because the free riders are simply not married couples with kids. 

    For example, we may believe in total unregulated freedom for health care- but when the federal government already controls >than 50% of spending and de facto sets the prices via a 50 year old program that is embedded into the body politic, our reform has to look different.  The same consideration applies to tax policy.

    • #51
  22. Pygmy Hippo Inactive
    Pygmy Hippo
    @PygmyHippo

    The U.S. fertility rate is (according to Wikipedia) roughly 2.1.  Between that and immigration our population is currently growing.  Doesn’t this kinda put a damper on the strength of the “not having people to pay for our extensive old people subsidization programs” argument?  And what should our fertility rate be?  When have we paid the childfull enough? 

    And way to go Israel.  Maybe we should pay Mexico and Canada to hate us?

    • #52
  23. Rob Long Contributor
    Rob Long
    @RobLong

    While it’s hard to know for sure whether tinkering with the tax code will encourage childraising or make life financially easier for parents, it’s utterly certain that any new tax laws will, ultimately, make life worse and more complicated for everyone.

    Shouldn’t a flatter tax accomplish most of this?  With generous allowances for savings, etc.?

    • #53
  24. Son of Spengler Member
    Son of Spengler
    @SonofSpengler

    Rob Long: Shouldn’t a flatter tax accomplish most of this? With generous allowances for savings, etc.?

     Lower taxes would help reduce (not eliminate) the distortions, but flatter taxes would exacerbate the problem. One of the larger costs of raising children is the time spent caring for them — either personally or paying someone else to do it. Flattening taxes means that at the higher end of the income scale, time = more money, so it costs more to leave paid employment. And if you’re paying someone else, that person is probably lower on the income scale, so you’d need to cover their additional costs from taxes.

    Said otherwise, flattening taxes increases the incentives to increase the amount of paid work, and a parent’s work is unpaid.

    • #54
  25. Son of Spengler Member
    Son of Spengler
    @SonofSpengler

    Pygmy Hippo: The U.S. fertility rate is (according to Wikipedia) roughly 2.1.

     The US recently dipped below that in aggregate, and the total fertility rate has been dropping (I think we’re more around 1.8-1.9, if memory serves). As importantly, the 2.1 is an average. Latina fertility is at or just above replacement rate; Non-hispanic (white and black) fertility is below.
    A rate of 2.1 is considered “replacement rate”, i.e., it will lead to a steady state population in the long term. In the shorter term, if the birth cohort is smaller than its parent cohort, growth will decelerate and the population will age until it reaches the steady state. That’s been happening now.

    Below 2.1 (as we are now), growth will decelerate, then flatten, then turn to population shrinkage. The average age of that population will continue to increase.

    Having spent a lot of time in Israel, I can say that there’s a huge difference in culture there vs. here in how children are valued, wanted, and treated. Here other people’s children are often presumed to be a nuisance; there, they are practically yours too.

    • #55
  26. Cantankerous Homebody Inactive
    Cantankerous Homebody
    @CantankerousHomebody

    Pygmy Hippo:
    Doesn’t this kinda put a damper on the strength of the “not having people to pay for our extensive old people subsidization programs” argument?

    I’m certainly not an expert in any capacity so I’d be open to correction, but just a quick wiki on the US 2013 Federal Budget shows that over half of the expenditures are on social security/medicare/medicaid and interest payments about a quarter of which was borrowed.  I think the problem isn’t that we’re not growing but rather that there’s a large cohort that’s expected to retire soonish that didn’t raise a similarly large cohort to pay for those programs.  Of course, none of this is an actual problem if we, in a crisis, change social security/medicare payouts by diktat.
    There’s also a question of social capital.  Wiki says replacement fertility is ~2.33 (with more boys than girls) so we’re growing through immigration.  Whether that’s good or bad depends on how different cultures interact and what you value.  It’s hard to make any judgements about that given the all out aggression by leftist culture on everything though.

    • #56
  27. Midget Faded Rattlesnake Member
    Midget Faded Rattlesnake
    @Midge

    Mike H:

    Midget Faded Rattlesnake:

    Mike H: I’m convinced that the net tax burden is currently on those with children.

    How do you figure? I’m not saying you’re wrong, I’m just interested in the details.

    Here.

    Thanks for the cite.

    He seems to be saying that a lot of the distortion in our current system is due to Social Security and Medicare (hereby abbreviated S&M), and is basing his reasoning on the assumption that these programs continue.

    It’s quite possible to believe that
    “child tax credit given S&M” = good
    but also that
    “existence of S&M” = bad,
    making
    “child tax credit not given anything” = ???

    One of the things I hate about political reasoning is that we’re always trying to estimate conditional probabilities without agreeing to or even necessarily knowing what the conditions are.* You could play that game all day with me: “Given this, would you accept that?” But I might still be left wondering how given any given given should be…
    ___________________________________________________
    *Yes, I know it’s inevitable. It may not be wise to hate the inevitable, but it’s pretty human.

    • #57
  28. user_554634 Member
    user_554634
    @MikeRapkoch

    I need to switch to a better membership so I get more comment words. 

    A few observations:

    First, I’m not so much advocating Salam’s argument as setting up a debate. The comments thus far raise serious objections, all of which deserve serious answers before we head down this road.

    Second, I do not believe this would result in more children because, as others have pointed out, the decision to have kids is not driven by economics, but by local desires. I argued in the comments only that the childless may not enjoy the devotion of children since there would be no personal attachment between upcoming generations and those who have no children. 

    Fourth, I am for major tax code revision. I actually lean toward a national consumption tax at a flat rate. This for many reasons I haven’t the space to detail.

    Having said that, I believe Salam’s argument has merit at least in so far as he identifies a serious problem, i.e., that parents have a huge burden as primary conduit to the social and economic future.  Maybe, as Salam puts it “the least we can do is give them a tax [break].

    • #58
  29. user_554634 Member
    user_554634
    @MikeRapkoch

    Also, for what it’s worth to this discussion, population growth in the US is now at its lowest rate since the Great Depression. From the Wall Street Journal:

    http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303453004579290870074903600

    • #59
  30. Midget Faded Rattlesnake Member
    Midget Faded Rattlesnake
    @Midge

    Duane Oyen:
    For example, we may believe in total unregulated freedom for health care- but when the federal government already controls >than 50% of spending and de facto sets the prices via a 50 year old program that is embedded into the body politic, our reform has to look different. The same consideration applies to tax policy.

    Sure. But how do you know when your accommodations to existing bad programs are optimal (that is, which accommodations to existing bad policy transition away from the bad policy in the most effective manner)? Just as being too unwilling to compromise won’t get you the optimum transition away from a bad program, so will being too willing to compromise.

    The intuition that adding yet another layer onto our crusted, sclerotic tax policy only makes it harder to reform is not entirely unwarranted.

    We will never  know  what the optimal accommodation to an existing bad policy is, either. There are just too many prior assumptions (inevitably, I think) going into all of our arguments, and it’s not surprising when differing priors lead to differing conclusions. We can only do our best to persuade each other with rough guesses.

    • #60
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